


The Burden of Family

by bubbleslayer



Category: The Sentinel
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-06
Updated: 2011-04-06
Packaged: 2017-10-17 16:34:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/178810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bubbleslayer/pseuds/bubbleslayer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Future time.  Daryl Banks realizes that family isn't always defined by blood, and that the burden can be heavy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Burden of Family

**Author's Note:**

> A big thanks to Dre who cried when she read this and gave me the strength to finish it. I drew heavily on my own father's passing to write this.
> 
> Story originally posted at 852 Prospect on 10/28/2007 under this user name.
> 
> Disclaimer: The Sentinel is owned etc. by Pet Fly, Inc. These pages and the stories on them are not meant to infringe on, nor are they endorsed by, Pet Fly, Inc. and Paramount.

Cascade, Washington  
Friday  
May 1, 2015

The dashboard clock read 4:45am when Daryl pulled up outside 852 Prospect and tapped the horn once per his instructions. It was still very early, and Blair had said that he didn't want to disturb any of their neighbors. While the loft had been just one of a handful of residential spaces in the neighborhood when Jim had moved in all those years ago, the area had become quite fashionable in the last few years and now almost every building housed condos and lofts.

He got out of his car and opened the rear passenger door before moving to stand just inside the front door of the building. Again, this was per Blair's instructions. He wiped his eyes, trying to hide the tears that were forming there as he thought about the reason behind this errand. He really, really didn't want to be here, but he'd promised Jim and Blair. And he knew that there wasn't anyone else they could trust.

A good five minutes passed before he heard the elevator doors open and he moved to help Blair. He was about to take Jim's free arm and swing it over his shoulder when Blair growled at him, "I've got him, just get the door."

Daryl sighed but did as he'd been told. He'd come to realize, years ago, that arguing with Blair was pointless. Oh, he still tried, when it suited him, but he always knew he wasn't going to get his way.

As he held the door open he got his first look at Jim. He felt guilty that he hadn't been by to see his friends in weeks, but his case load had taken pretty much every waking moment. He'd assuaged that guilt by telling himself that if anyone would understand how demanding the job could be, it was Jim and Blair.

Jim was gaunt, and looked ten years older than he actually was. His head was bald, and his skin was pale and translucent. He looked as if he'd lost several pounds since Daryl had last seen him, pounds he couldn't afford to loose. But then, weight loss was a moot point now wasn't it?

Once outside the door he hurried ahead and pulled the car door open the remaining small fraction the frame would allow. He wanted to reach out, to take Blair's burden from him, to be the friend, the family, that he'd become to these two. But he stifled it, allowing his friends to do this their own way.

It took some maneuvering, but Blair gently got Jim settled into the car and then slid in beside him. Daryl softly closed the door and moved around to get behind the wheel. He started the car and pulled away from the curb after checking to make sure the coast was clear, not that anyone else would be up at this ungodly hour of the morning. They had just under one hour until sunrise, and he wanted to make sure Jim and Blair were settled before it happened.

The first few minutes of the drive were silent, and Daryl felt the weight of what was going to happen settle more firmly onto his shoulders. He felt the sting of tears again but made no effort to wipe them away. If he did, Blair would notice. He didn't want to burden his friend with his own pain. Blair had enough of his own to deal with.

He jerked the wheel in surprise when a thready voice spoke from the back seat.

"It's okay Daryl. You can grieve. You should grieve. Remember what I told you when your father died? Grief is personal. There's no right way, and no wrong way. Deal with it in your own way, and you'll get through it."

Daryl met Jim's eyes in the rear view mirror. The short speech seemed to have taken a lot out of Jim, who was quietly panting. He watched as Blair's hand came in from the side of the mirror to smooth the top of Jim's head.

Blair's voice was stronger, but just as sad, as he said, "Yes Love, he'll get through it. They all will."

Daryl swallowed down his grief. He'd take time for that later. Right now, they needed him, and he'd be damned if he was going to screw this up.

He checked his cross streets and made the left on Willow that would take him towards the ocean. He prayed the beach they'd chosen would be deserted, that even the die hard athletes who ran the shore would skip their runs this Friday morning.

He parked the car and opened the back door, watching as Blair eased Jim out of the car. Although the layers of clothes he wore made it hard to tell, Daryl was pretty sure that Blair had lost weight too.

Jim might be frighteningly thin, but he was still a big man, yet Blair seemed to take that weight on as if it were minimal. Daryl figured that he'd had to get used to it over the last several months as Jim had wasted away.

It broke Daryl's heart to see what had become of his friend and surrogate father. When his own father had died of a stroke when Daryl had only been 19, Jim had stepped into the role of Dad. Not to replace Simon, only to be there when he was needed. Blair had already become the older brother he'd always wanted, and together, the two of them had provided Daryl with the male role models and stability he'd lost with his father. They'd been there when he'd graduated from college, and then when he'd graduated from the academy. They'd been there, when just three years after his father had passed, his mother had lost her battle with breast cancer. Daryl thanked whatever deity came to mind that he'd had them. He'd been all alone, orphaned as any 22 year old could be, and very angry. They'd helped him grieve, and somehow he'd gotten through it.

When, four years ago, he'd married Cherie, the love of his life, Blair had stood up as his best man, and Jim had acted as the `parent' of the groom. Looking back on his life, from his early teens to today, those two had been the glue that had held him together. When he and his wife had started having problems in their marriage due to stress from the job, it was Jim who had set them down and talked some sense into them. He'd pointed out that while marriage wasn't easy, it was worth it. As long as he and Cherie remembered that they loved each other, and were willing to keep the lines of communication open, they'd be okay. Daryl knew that those words had come from experience. He'd been perceptive enough as a young man to recognize the rough patches Jim and Blair had gone through, and that most of those were due to a lack of communication.

He also knew that couldn't have been the only problem that had come up for them, but it was probably the biggest.

Daryl had never believed a word of Blair's press conference. Not many who knew him had. It became an open `secret' around the station house, as had Jim and Blair's romance. There had been some who'd wanted to cause problems for the two, but his father and the rest of their friends, had quickly shut it down.

A few weeks before Daryl's 18th birthday Jim and Blair had taken him camping. During that weekend they had told him the truth. The whole truth. They had told him that he was mature enough to realize the importance of the information and that they trusted him. He'd been honored and humbled. It hadn't changed their relationship, except to strengthen it. He'd known there was something really special about Jim after what had happened in Peru, now he had a name for it. And when Blair had cajoled Jim into a demonstration Daryl had been awed.

Over the years, especially since his father had died, Daryl had done everything he could to help the Sentinel and Guide. Like today.

As they made their way from the car down to the beach Daryl ran a mental inventory and realized he was the only one left. The only one left in the area that knew just who Jim and Blair were, to each other, to their friends and family, and to the city.

His father wasn't the only one forever lost to them. Megan had taken a bullet during a raid before he'd even graduated from High School. And Rhonda had been killed in a car accident just two years ago, a victim of freezing rain. The rest were gone, but not really gone. Joel, who'd taken over Major Crimes when his father had passed, was now retired. He and his wife had moved to Florida five years ago to be closer to their daughter and grandchildren. Henri, having suffered a heart attack that prevented him from remaining on active duty, had taken a job in the private sector. Rafe had simply announced one day that he'd had enough of the rain and was moving to Las Vegas.

Naomi was gone too. She'd died last year while on retreat in India. Jim's Dad had been gone close to five years and Jim had never really been able to mend the damaged fences with his brother. He'd tried, but Steven had been too set in his ways to accept who and what his brother was. Jim being a Sentinel had been bad enough, but when Steven had found out that his brother was also in love with another man the coffin had been closed and sealed.

It really hit Daryl then. What they were doing. Why they were here. He'd known it, but he hadn't really let himself process it. Jim was dying. Would probably be dead before the day was out. Blair had asked him to come, to take them to the beach so they could watch the sun rise together, one last time. Daryl was positive that by this time tomorrow Jim would be gone, and Blair would be alone. He couldn't even comprehend it. He couldn't see Blair without Jim, and it would be the same if the roles were somehow reversed.

They'd finally made it to the beach and Blair gestured to the right, indicating that the spot they wanted was that way. It was slow going. Jim only took every third step under his own power, and Blair was having more trouble in the sand then he'd had on the pavement. But Daryl kept his hands to himself. He planned to get them settled and then return to the car to wait until he was needed again. He hung his head as he thought about what had brought them to this horrible day.

Two years ago, years that seemed like the longest and shortest years of his life, Jim had been diagnosed with prostate cancer. The doctor had almost ignored Jim's request for testing, saying that since he wasn't showing any symptoms testing wasn't necessary, but Blair had convinced the doctor that Jim's family had a history of the disease, and the doctor finally agreed. And to the doctors surprise, they had found a very small, but malignant tumor.

Jim had stoically gone through surgery, then chemo and radiation. Daryl and Cherie had helped as much as they could, but the majority of the work had been done by Blair. Chemo and radiation are hard on everyone, but on a Sentinel? It had been horrific. And Daryl believes that only Jim's stubborn refusal to be separated from Blair had kept him alive.

After the treatments Jim slowly regained his strength, and his hair. Blair had joked at the time that Jim should just start shaving his head since there was so little to grow back anyway, but Jim had just laughed. They hadn't been surprised when Jim's hairline remained the same, but they were shocked to find that the hair that grew back was fuller, and even curly once long enough. Jim had then joked that he'd just let it go and soon he'd have a head of hair to rival Blair's. Daryl could still remember the fight Jim and Blair had had right after Blair had become a detective. Blair had wanted to cut his hair, to try to keep from standing out so much, but Jim had been adamant that he keep it. He wasn't sure if they'd been lovers before that fight or not, but when they finally settled the dispute Blair still had long hair, and Jim was walking funny, for days.

Life had gone back to normal, or what passed for normal. Jim, who'd been on medical leave for months, came back full of vim and vigor. Blair, who'd taken FMLA to take care of his partner, returned to work in full mother-hen mode.

Six months. They'd had six months of normalcy before the cancer came back. Bigger and badder this time. But Jim decided to fight it, and fight it he did. First surgery, then more chemo and radiation. But it didn't work. Jim Ellison had finally come up against the one thing that he couldn't overcome with stubbornness. Well, aside from one Blair Sandburg.

He watched as Blair slowly lowered Jim to sit on the sand and then moved to sit down behind him.

He turned to leave but paused when he heard Blair breathlessly ask, "Hey Dare, can you help me out here? I want him across my lap."

Daryl nodded and shifted Jim at a right angle to Blair, and then lifted him up so his butt was in the V created by Blair's legs. They were as close as they could be and still be able to see both the sunrise and each other.

Daryl looked out over the water and was happy to see that they'd beaten the sun there. Even though he'd lived his entire life in Cascade it still amazed him that the geography of this bay allowed them to look east, over the water. He didn't know of anywhere else on the West Coast where it was possible to watch the sunrise over the water.

"Thanks Dare, for everything. You've been so patient. I know this is hard for you, and I'm sorry to burden you with it all."

Blair looked like he was going to go on, but Daryl felt his heart crack a little at the visible tears in Blair's eyes. He looked so lost, and, well, sad. Sad seemed to be such an insufficient word for the grief he could see playing over his friend's face, but he couldn't think of any other way to describe it.

Daryl sat down and put his hand on Blair's back, rubbing small circles between his friend's shoulder blades.

"Blair, it's alright. It's what family's for."

Blair just nodded in response and Daryl watched the tears escape to roll down Blair's cheeks. Jim, who'd been dozing since they'd sat down raised his hand to wipe them away. Daryl's heart cracked a little more when he saw how that hand shook with fatigue, and at how Blair placed a kiss into the palm before threading their fingers together and settling their hands between them.

He pulled his own hand back and scooted away a few feet to give the men some privacy. Both men were looking to the horizon, and then back to each other. They didn't speak. Daryl figured that they'd said all they'd needed to long ago. He turned away, watching the sun creep up, the reds giving way to oranges and yellows, before the sky settled into the pale blue of morning.

Once the sun was completely over the horizon he turned back and was both surprised, and unsurprised, to see Jim limp in Blair's arms, the lack of the sound of Jim's labored breathing confirming that Jim was gone. Blair was sitting stilly, his head bowed over the body that had once held the other half of his soul.

Daryl scooted back to Blair's side and started to rub his back again. It took him a few seconds to realize that something was wrong. Later, when he'd had time to think about it, he'd decided that his brain just wouldn't let him accept the truth at first.

He stopped his hand, dead center on Blair's back, and held it there for one second, two, three. Blair wasn't breathing. Daryl's heart didn't crack this time, it shattered.

He stood and moved around in front of the two men, from this angle he could see that they were both gone. Their eyes were open, and locked on each other. The last thing they'd seen was each other.

His first instinct was to lay Blair out and begin CPR, but he hesitated. He wiped his eyes and looked up and down the beach, to see if anyone was around, before settling back down. He reached out and took Jim and Blair's joined hands in one of his own. He wanted a few minutes alone. A few minutes to say goodbye to two of the most important people in his life before he had to call it in and start the bureaucratic process of burying his friends.

Daryl tipped his head forward and let his tears fall. Blair had known. Known that he would die too. He'd said as much in the car. " _They_ all will."

He was angry. Angry that Blair hadn't felt the need to give him some warning. Angry that he was an orphan, again. He picked up a handful of sand and flung it with all his strength, channeling all his anger into the sand. As it scattered in the breeze he remembered something Blair had told him when he'd been angry and upset over his father's death. Blair had said that life was just one step in a much larger journey, and that death was nothing more than the next step on that journey. And that the pain and anger that Daryl was feeling were tributes to the wonderful man that his father was, that they proved how much Simon was loved and respected by his son.

Daryl took a deep breath and looked back at his friends, embracing his pain and anger as part of his love for them and pulled out his cell phone.

End


End file.
